


Nightmares and Whatever

by beantiger



Category: Hololive, HololiveEN, Virtual Streamer Animated Characters
Genre: Calli learning to be a good girlfriend, Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, Cute, F/F, Fluff, Nightmares, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Sweet, Tsunderes, and a good human, and still talking like a boomer, how do u do fellow kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:36:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29932836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beantiger/pseuds/beantiger
Summary: “It’s just a nightmare,kusotori.Fake brain stuff. No need to think too much about it. We’re here now, aren’t we?”(Kiara, birb girlfriend, has bad dreams. It's a learning experience for our favorite reaper-turned-rapper body-thief, Calliope.)
Relationships: Mori Calliope/Takanashi Kiara
Comments: 17
Kudos: 144





	Nightmares and Whatever

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind-of a sequel to ["Like Kusotori Herself"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29690577/chapters/73009296) so go read that first for a bit of context. Or not. As our Papa would say, I'm not your parental figure.

Beside her, _kusotori_ twitched in her sleep, then flipped toward the wall, murmuring under her breath. In the dark, Kiara’s shoulderblades rose and fell rapidly underneath her camisole. 

_Odd,_ Calliope thought, glancing over from the sketch on her iPad. This was the third night in a row. Kiara, generally, slept like the dead. She’d always hit the sheets and become an instant snoring lump of unconsciousness—Calliope had seen that enough on their many vacations together. It was endearing. Kind-of.

These little fits, though, had started when Calliope had discovered they were— _guh_ —soulmates, as Death-sensei had said. That was a few weeks ago. What did that make her and Kiara? Partners? Girlfriends? Wives? She settled on Whatevers, for the time being. No matter the nomenclature, they shared a queen-sized mattress now when they had their sleepovers. And each time, as she slumbered, Kiara tossed and turned.

Calliope set her tablet aside and pressed her fingertips to Kiara’s back. Kiara whined, curling in on herself.

“ _Kusotori?_ ” Calliope whispered, then placed her palm—the soul-marked palm—flat against Kiara’s spine.

Kiara twitched. Barked something in German. Flipped again, staring at the ceiling, her face contorted.

“Hey—Kiara,” Calliope said.

With a gasp, Kiara’s eyes fluttered open. She looked around, her expression wild, before settling back on the sheets. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said. Strangely enough, Kiara melted into giggles, her chest shaking. “I’ll try to be quieter while you work. It’s just…”

Calliope lit a few bedside candles. Though Kiara smiled over at her, yellow-gold-orange tears matted her cheeks. 

“You were clearly upset about something,” Calliope replied. She considered what she should say next. Something comforting, probably. But nothing came to mind. Physical, mortal relationships still confused her. Emotion still confused her. Yet she wanted to wrap her mind around it all, if only to impress Kiara, who had exhibited an extraordinary level of patience and restraint since they began their Whatever.

Kiara turned to face Calliope fully, her hands tucked under the pillow. She seemed to consider her words—common for her, since she knew like, twenty languages, and only shared one with Calliope. 

“Well, I keep falling asleep thinking about…I never feel...time passing, really, until I use a...human shape?” she said.

“Yeah, I get you, my dude. ‘Eternity’ didn’t even feel like a concept until I got...uh, here. It’s big. It’s really big. I try not to overload my brain with it. Human minds seem to be good at that, ignoring the basics. What about it?”

“Just—since the whole thing with the feather on your hand I’ve—I’ve been thinking about...if you’d never accepted it? Never accepted us? And we’d both be empty forever.”

“Until the Big Crunch, anyway. That’s when we _all_ get to die. Pretty baller if you think about it.”

Pensive, brow furrowed, Kiara fiddled with the little ribbon on her camisole. “So I’ve been having nightmares about that. Before we were in this world being idols, before we were streaming, when we chased each other around the multiverse—”

“Now, hold up. I don’t recall any chasing.”

“—just a reaper and a phoenix. Everything felt like one long day, even after I was reborn and lost memories, so...I didn’t think about it before. Forever. Forever being _alone._ Does that make sense, Calli?”

It did. Time still seemed more like a mortal invention than a hard scientific fact for Calliope. Moments from her life as a reaper—or unlife, as she preferred to call it—didn’t play one after another as she experienced them. They stacked on top of each other. They all happened at once. 

A linear timeline only formed after she took on this mortal body. It had made her relationship with _kusotori_ particularly annoying: rather than rejecting Kiara once, she’d suddenly remembered she’d had to launch Kiara out of the underworld multiple times, over millennia. Tiny, chicken-shaped cherry bombs to the face, rather than a nuclear explosion. Ugh.

Of course, she still didn’t like to see Kiara sad for no reason. Especially for something that wasn’t her fault. And Calliope had to be a good Whatever to her now. 

She put on her warmest expression. “It’s just a nightmare, _kusotori._ Fake brain stuff. No need to think too much about it. We’re here now, aren’t we?”

“Right...yes.”

Kiara faced away from her again and fell silent.

Was that it? Did Calliope do well? Did she win?

Calliope picked up her iPad and continued to sketch.

It was weird to see Kiara upset. Not cloyingly so, like on their collaboration streams, where she always overreacted to Calliope’s rejections; not in the silly, faux-manipulative way she sometimes used to get a hug out of Calliope for the _tee-tee_ that their viewers loved. But...truly upset.

This was a creature who had experienced a hundred thousand agonizing deaths. Not that she recalled much of it, but Calliope certainly did. For every hilarious way that the dumb bird had offed herself—she had a habit of fatally crunching into windows—Kiara had perished in a genocide or a war or fallen into torturous, barbaric hands. 

Yet every time Calliope appeared to send Kiara back to the land of the living, her little spirit would pop up with a cheerful _kicky-ricky!_ Then Calliope would blow her ashes into the wind, gently, and Kiara would reform, fluttering onto the next world.

Flames and light and joy. Every time.

What the f-word, then, were these _nightmares_ that hurt her so badly?

Calliope shut off the iPad again, then blew out the candles, settling into the dark.

To be Whatevers was annoying, but Calliope actually—liked it? Just a little. She felt happier than before. Again: a little. The soul-mark looked kind-of badass now. And Kiara’s affections had improved her mortal life...slightly. 

Or a lot. Fine—a lot. 

In the end, Calliope enjoyed possessing something so infinitely beautiful. She enjoyed _being_ possessed. Thinking on it brought a hot, pleasant sensation to her mortal shell—one that began at the feather on her palm and spread in waves across her flesh. She even found herself wishing she could tell her Deadbeats all about it, though it was Kiara, strangely, who suggested waiting. Kiara was always so good at reading people.

Calliope mumbled, “You’re still upset.”

“It’s nothing, Calli,” Kiara whimpered. “It’s really nothing. Fake brain stuff, like you said.”

“Okay, well. I’m going to ask you to cuddle,” Calliope said with a sigh. She extended her right arm. “For once. But that’s it. I mean it, _kusotori._ ”

Kiara scooted nearer on the bed, then nestled neatly into her side, her head tucked against Calliope’s neck. One arm slipped chastely around Calliope’s waist; one knee poked at Calliope’s thigh. Neither of them had much more on than their underwear, and the skin contact seemed to soothe Kiara immediately.

“Is this okay?” Kiara asked.

“Wow. You’re really, truly asking me that.”

“Calli, I wouldn’t actually do anything you didn’t want me to do,” Kiara said. “Before, I thought we were playing a game...you know?”

Miscommunication. Didn’t it always come down to that? Even for immortals.

“Hush. No thoughts, no words,” Calliope said. “Only sleep.”

Within seconds, tiny snores drifted up from below Calliope’s chin.

This was the first time Calliope had ever let her so close. God, what had she feared from a simple cuddle? The intimacy, she supposed. She was still reassembling her worldview—still piecing together the idea that she had the capacity to love. That it was inevitable. There was something a little fearsome in a crazy-solid wall of certainty looming over you.

 _I guess,_ Calliope thought, _I know how every little homie feels who tries to run from me._

Funny how that worked.

She wasn’t used to existing as an object of desire, either. Not in a primal way. Sure, she received marriage proposals almost daily from a handful of misguided Deadbeats. Sure, plenty of mortals had craved the quick, freeing cut of her scythe over the last few millennia. But no one actually wanted _her,_ the thinking thing behind the power. 

Only one creature had ever wanted to get to know her, even when Calliope had been nothing more than a nebulous concept of shadow and fear.

She found herself clutching Kiara tighter, burying her nose into the little bird’s hair.

What _if_ Calliope had denied herself this?

Well—that was just an idea. There wasn’t any use focusing on it. Now they just had moments like these into infinity. Whatever-ing. Forever, _five_ -ever, as the Deadbeats might say. Long past the love between any other being. Long past the existence of much of the universe.

Calliope slid her marked palm over the peach-fuzz on her Whatever’s arm, back and forth, back and forth, until she joined her in warm, undisturbed sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> love 👏 that 👏 borb
> 
> BTW: I really appreciate all the great feedback I've been getting on my Takamori fic(s), y'all. Not that you have to comment or share it or whatever if you don't feel the need, but I've been feeling like a lonely talentless blob lately, and I'm glad I can still bring folks some joy. This fandom rocks. :o)


End file.
